Theft statistics!

[AnthonyVJ]

Now I'm not thinking of a retirement of criminal activitiesBut which do you think would disappear fastest if left unattended, a caravan or a motorhome?

Helen

 

[Icemaker]

the caravan with out any doubt, just had a quote to insure my van and was adviced that it costs on average 4 times more to insure a caravan than it does a motorhome due to the extra theft problem.

 

[AnthonyVJ]

I have read somewhere that one motorhome owner used to tie a rope between the driver and passenger doors to prevent break ins, must have been while they were in it!!Well nothings really theft proof I suppose. Do you think a tracker is the best deterrent? Something in me baulks at paying the annual fee to those things.

Helen

 

[Steve L]

Caravan's for sure.

First of all they are easy to hook to any car with a tow bar. Secondly they are not so recognisable as a motor home once you slap on a self adhesive number plate to match your car.

The other week my brother-in-law towed his van 100 miles each way while on holiday with us and also left the van on site for a whole week with his newly aquired car. No one let alone a copper questioned the fact that the van was N753 OTX and the car X81 MOA

Even this weekend they towed a goods trailer and you could see both the plate on the car and the plate on the trailer from behind and again no one spotted the difference.

I bet if you drove round a stolen motor home with it's plates original plates on, sooner or later you'd get stopped. Or even try false plates for that matter.

I reckon we should have the continental trucking system, where the trailer has it's own unique registration plate anyway. You would still get your speeding tickets as the trailer would be registered with DVLA and also it would be traceable for age and insurance write off too. How many people have bought a written off caravan without knowing it. I've seen several repaired at a shed in Wales. All of which were economic write offs, but if you don't count labour cost too much they can be made good as new. Also do they get an engineers report to say they are fit for use, I guess not.

Under a controlled registration scheme this would be covered and policeable, well in theory for the latter!!

Just think how many twin axle vans stolen every year would not be toched if this was in place. Also taking them to southern Ireland would be out as they would have to be registered in their own right on the ferry for transportation, instead of just a towed un-identified trailer on the back of the legally registered and owned vehicle.

Food for thought??

One last comment for all those frightened of "big brother watching".

If you're doing nothing wrong, what have you got to hide of feel guilty of??!!

Steve Ll

 

[AnthonyVJ]

Right, I think we'll have a clamp on both wheels of the caravan then, make it as difficult as possible! I suppose quite a few things could be done to make stealing them harder if enough people cared about it.

Have you got a big caravan supplier and accessory place over there in Leominster Steve?

Helen

 

[yvonne6]

we nearly had our van stolen a few weeks ago - it has the usual security (wheelclamp and al-ko hitch lock)but now we have added 2 leg locks, a door alarm and a motorclycle chain wrapped through the hitchlock, it may be a bit much but if it is to be nicked then the dirty rotten scoundrels will have to work for it.

yvonne

 

[Surfer]

We would like to have the original Tracker Monitor installed but at

 

[KiwiPete]

I agree with Steve on the registration point. Here, in New Zealand, all trailers, be they caravans, horse boxes, car trailers or just trailers, have to be registered as a vehicle to be used on the road. They have an annual registration fee, and therefore disc, have their own number plate and what is more are required to undergo a "warrant of fitness" (MOT) annually to ensure road worthiness, a double bonus.

Kiwi Pete.

 

[Mikey1]

We would like to have the original Tracker Monitor installed but at